Etihad Airways Plans 11% More North America Flights Next Summer

As you probably know, Etihad Airways has added Boston as its next North America destination. It begins in summer 2024 and will be its first new passenger destination on the continent in a decade. It will benefit from codesharing with JetBlue at its second-busiest airport. Etihad will be Boston’s fourth Middle East carrier, joining El Al, Emirates, and Qatar Airways. Additionally, Delta serves Tel Aviv.

Boston is coming

Etihad will launch Abu Dhabi-Boston on March 31st, 2024, when airlines in the Northern Hemisphere switch to summer schedules. Deploying the Boeing 787-9, the schedule is as follows, with all times local:

• Abu Dhabi to Boston: EY147, 03:10-08:55 (13h 45m)
• Boston to Abu Dhabi: EY148, 15:55-12:00+1 (12h 5m)

Image: GCMap.

Just ~7,000 point-to-point passengers

Booking data for 2019 shows that the Boston-Abu Dhabi point-to-point market was only around 7,000 – tiny for such a long-haul market, although it will be easy to grow. It is unclear how many of Emirates‘ Dubai passengers continued overland to/from the UAE capital.

Obviously, most Etihad passengers will transfer over the carrier’s Abu Dhabi hub. Based on where the airline serves, Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Johannesburg will be among the largest markets it will target. However, most already have multiple one-stop options.

Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying.

Surely Etihad needs little help to fill India-bound services, perhaps especially as analysis of booking data shows it has a higher proportion of passengers who continue to/from India than Emirates and Qatar Airways. However, could its decision to add Boston be somewhat influenced by Air India hoping to begin flights to the city?

Fifth North American destination

As of August 6th, Etihad plans 39 weekly departures from Abu Dhabi to the US and Canada next summer. This is up by four weekly flights versus the current summer (+11%), directly because of Boston.

Services have risen by a strong 30% versus 2019 when Los Angeles operated, when JFK was only daily, and Toronto was sub-daily as it was before the current, less restrictive UAE-Canada bilateral was implemented. However, they are down from Etihad’s record of 48 weekly held for a long time thanks to three US routes that are no longer served (see later).

Three US routes are no longer served

According to the US Department of Transportation T-100 data, Etihad first began US passenger flights 17 years ago in 2006. Between then and 2022, it transported more than nine million people, with 2016 being the peak year. Its US network comprised three routes that no longer exist:

On the off-chance that Etihad adds another North America city soon, where would you like to be next? A return to Los Angeles, perhaps, or somewhere new?

Sources: Booking data, DOT T-100, Cirium, Etihad, Google Flights.